Diccon was not married.
I knew I shouldn’t be happy about what had happened, but how could I help it?
I wrote back, cautiously. Just some words of consolation, some breezy family news. After that, we wrote each other often. I told him about the paintings I was doing, about the illustrations and all the commission work that was piling up. Diccon wrote to me about his novel; he was no longer secretive or vague. He wrote in great detail about the progress he was making.
I wrote faithfully, but I never asked him when he might come to see me, I never begged him to come to New York. It was bound to happen, and now, more than ever, I had faith that once we were together again we would never part. Surely it was inevitable . . . even preordained?
I was surer even than I’d been at thirteen that Diccon belonged to me, and could belong to no one else. We’d marry, quickly—why wait? It was all so simple now.
In the beginning of July 1928, we went to stay with Cecil and Teddy at Merryall. By midsummer Diccon wrote that he was brooding again. He wasn’t altogether happy with his book; he’d reached a standstill. He wasn’t doing any real work, he said. Mainly I sit with the typewriter in front of me and watch the tedious comings and goings of the stupid bloody hollow-eyed pigeons on the window ledge. I’ve got myself in a hole — I’ve got to get away again.
He was thinking of coming to New York to finish his book. Perhaps the Connecticut countryside and the company of the Biancos could cheer him up. Did I think it sounded like a good idea?
I wrote to say I’d be at the pier to meet him.
This was it, I thought.
This time it would be different. Diccon wouldn’t behave as he had the last time; he wouldn’t make himself scarce.
I had waited for Diccon so many times. But this would be the last time. My anticipation was all hot and fierce and embroidered with fantasy. I couldn’t stop myself—my mind reeled with imagined scenes. Perhaps a long walk in the piney woods and hillsides of Connecticut. Wildflowers—wood lilies and jewelweed and wild indigo—would decorate our way. I’d pause to examine a bloom too pretty to pass by, and as I turned to show it to Diccon, he would step towards me and without a word kiss my eyes, my neck, my mouth. He would murmur his love, the love he had held back for so long. Or—perhaps a rainy night. After dinner and several glasses of wine he would simply take my hand. Come, Pamela, let’s not stay indoors with all this lovely rain. We’d run outside laughing, and he would lead me into the little copse at the meadow’s edge and kiss me hard, not giving me a choice. . . .
pamela
sunshine warmed the city as I hailed a taxi on Broadway. How light I felt! Everything seemed to contribute to it: the sun glinting off the twin globes of the gas lamps, the warm leather of the cab seat, the pretty way the pleats of my dress flared when I crossed my legs.
I have not lost him after all.
This time, when Diccon came off the ship, the scene was as if scripted for a Hollywood film. It was almost silly. I saw him scan the crowd; when he spied me, he grinned—he looked absolutely thrilled to see me. He threw his arms around me. He said I looked beautiful. Beautiful! All the pain of the last few years melted then, dissolving into the heat of the city, vanishing into the happy pulsing of my blood.
It would be a glorious end of summer.
Our days at Merryall were tranquil and lovely, and as easy as the old days. Diccon’s novel sped along—he said he had hopes that he might finish it while he was in America. And I was taking a little holiday from illustrating. Teddy had carved out space for me in his studio, and I was painting still lifes: three wild roses in a glass bowl; an apple, a pear, and a silver knife on a blue dish; a few wildflowers tossed on the tin kitchen table.
Diccon would drop by once in a while to watch me paint. He slipped in one day as I worked on the stems of some meadowsweet.
“It’s wonderful to see you working again,” he said.
“Working again?” I didn’t understand. “But I’ve always been working!”
“Painting, I mean. Not those damned illustrations.”
“But it’s . . . Daddy says that . . .”
“Daddy! Pamela, you are the artist, not your father.”
I didn’t understand why he sounded so hostile. Surely he knew why I was spending so much time doing illustration work. I’d explained in my letters about all the contracts.
The old unease returned.
I was frustrated. Despite the string of fine and peaceful days in the country, all my efforts to be alone with Diccon seemed to fail. Every time I thought there was to be an excursion with just the two of us, Cecco or Cecil or someone would decide to go along. I’d suggest berry-picking or picnicking or swimming, but Diccon would cheerfully demur. I’ve too much work to do! Or Tomorrow, perhaps!
He made time for horses, though. Our neighbors, the Cassidys, had a horse farm. Cecil and Teddy had known Jane Cassidy since she was a child. She was a favorite of theirs—ours, too—with her high spirits, her irreverent wit, and her curly strawberry-blonde hair tied back with whatever she could find lying about—a shoelace, or the string off a feedbag. She was married to someone named Marion, but I never saw him. He always seemed to be off somewhere on business. Iowa. Or St. Louis.
When Jane found out that Diccon loved to ride, she told him he could borrow one of her horses any time he liked. Sometimes I’d look up from my painting to see Diccon cantering off into the woods.
I would have loved to go with him, but I didn’t know the first thing about riding horses.
On a hot day in August, Diccon came to my studio, his forehead glistening with sweat. I’d say he looked wilted but his eyes were so fierce that really he looked like a madman. He declared he couldn’t write a word. He was irritable and sullen, complaining of the heat.
I said, “Well, then, let’s go to the lake!” And almost dropped my brush in amazement when he agreed. We packed a picnic and set off on the three-mile hike to Lake Waramaug.